Draem
by Ethanamide
Summary: One-shot based on a dream I had: Fed up of being left on the sidelines Molly leaves London, finds something unexpected when she has to come back for a conference.


One shot I wrote pre S4, based on a dream I had.

* * *

Following his overdose on the plane, Sherlock had been escorted to a private hospital, where he was sobered up, and where Mary gave birth. Holding onto that precious new life changed his perspective in an instant, he'd made a vow to protect the tiny human, and he couldn't do that dead. It was his proverbial kick up the arse, the moment his brother's words truly faded from his mind, how could caring for her be a disadvantage? Gradually he allowed himself to heal, to go to rehab, to spend more time with Mrs Hudson, Greg and his parents. He obsessed less over The Work, and reverted to teasing rather than tormenting Mycroft, he even cleaned his fridge. He spent much of his time solving cases from his inbox while he watched baby Watson develop, he made sure all his cases (and bills) were paid, he used Lestrade's proper first name. The little things, so often overlooked before, were now commonplace in Sherlock's interactions, and to his surprise, didn't detract from his deductive ability. For the first time in his life, Sherlock Holmes was content.

* * *

The last time Molly had seen Sherlock Holmes he had been happily married, much to everyone's surprise. He had hugged her and wished her well, with sadness carefully masked in his eyes, as she left the capital to become the Head of Pathology at a hospital in North Yorkshire. She hadn't seen the south in 18 months, and hadn't been intending to for at least another 6 until she'd been asked to present at a conference hosted by the Royal College of Pathologists in London. The conference last year had been in Newcastle, and Manchester the year before, she had been hoping for Brighton or Bournemouth so she could spend some time on the coast without a coat on. There had been a little contact with Greg, Mrs Hudson and Mary, and a blank birthday card she assumed was from Sherlock, but nothing substantial enough to make her feel wanted. She was no stranger to being ostracised, and as such, declined to tell anyone she was travelling down. Graeme, her new boyfriend, was not aware of the situation leading up to her leaving, and he couldn't get the time off to come with her, so even if Sherlock showed up there would be no awkward questions.

In truth, she hadn't wanted to leave London, and had expected Sherlock to find a way to stop her, but instead he had encouraged her to take a position more befitting of her skills. He rolled out the old edict that he was only a phone call away, and should she ever need his advice to not hesitate to ring, to which she rolled her eyes and bit her tongue, it was well established that he needed her skills more than she needed his. She wished him good luck with the other pathologists and did her best to hide her shock and sadness when he disclosed that he'd already been working with them to get used to her absence. It explained why she hadn't seen him for weeks, and re-affirmed that she no longer belonged in that circle. She had been left out of the loop regarding whatever had happened with the drugs/Janine/shooting case, as well as the aftermath, and they'd even had the audacity to forget about her when Jim's face showed up all over the country. It was then she knew it was time to keep an eye on other jobs outside of London. She found the advert for the Yorkshire position two days before she saw Sherlock for the first time in several months, enough that she'd stopped counting, and she knew immediately something was off, he held himself differently, he talked to her differently, using pleasantries, small talk and manners of all things. The change in his demeanour was the nail in the coffin for her, she would leave them to their new lives and try to start again in the north. It took two months and 3 interviews, but the position was hers, so she handed in her notice and began house hunting. She settled on a stunning period cottage in a village not far from her new workplace, cosy and entirely different from London.

During the months she was applying for the job she saw Sherlock sporadically, although he kept a polite distance and almost exclusively came in with Lestrade to check over the body. There were no more cultures of his to look after, or strange experiments in her lab, no coming in at odd hours or crisp based lunches instead of established lunch dates, she got to eat all her office snacks, and she hated it. The most upsetting thing was that she knew he kept using her flat as a bolt hole, just when she wasn't there. When she first moved up north she used to wonder whether it had affected Sherlock, how he would cope with the interns and one less retreat, and as the days went by and no one rang to see how she was or to complain about the void she'd left, she stopped wondering and tried to leave them all behind. She still kept up with her work colleagues, exchanging the odd email every few weeks, and one of them even came to visit around her birthday, which was unexpected but very welcome. Gradually her life moved on, she made new friends in the hospital and started dating a surgeon who was very funny, and loved her cat. Molly had made a point of getting involved in her local community, and properly settling in, she wasn't going back to London, so why not? She was singing with the village choir, involved in the WI, and running sessions at the hospital for medicine students who may want to know more about her specialism, her life was busy and varied and good. One journey back to London for two days couldn't change that.

* * *

Marriage and a family weren't something Sherlock Holmes was interested in until he saw John and Mary with their baby the day after she was born. He found he wanted that, he wanted a reason to live, someone to come home to.

"It was the way you wear your hair" He'd said when he and his wife were discussing why he'd asked her out for coffee. It was worn in a side braid, her eyes were icy blue and sharp, not unlike his own. They'd met on a case, one of Lestrades homicides had been referred over to SOCA (Serious Organised Crime Agency), the organisation she worked for. He'd been intrigued by her methods and her background, she'd gone to work for SOCA after working with MI5 on one of the projects his brother had managed, although she'd claimed never to have heard of him (Sherlock had rolled his eyes at this, Mycroft loved to play 'M'). After 3 months of casual dating he introduced her to John and Mary, then his parents. Mummy and Daddy weren't overly fond of her, they were of the opinion that she was too independent for him, that he needed looking after, not just someone who could keep up with him. John was inclined to agree with the Holmes' and Mary, somewhat suspiciously, kept her opinion to herself. He waited another six months before introducing her to Mycroft, knowing exactly what his opinion would be. The brothers shared a scotch after a dinner filled with almost awkward small talk, and as Sherlock suspected, Mycroft shared the view of their parents, and John.

"It's Adler all over again. Give it more time brother," Mycroft had sighed, aware that there was nothing he could say to sway his brother from this romantic entanglement, so he may as well tell the truth. It went down like a lead balloon, and the next thing he knew they'd eloped.

As it turned out, married life suited Sherlock, and he found a good routine, one that balanced his work with his babysitting duties. He found a unique joy in documenting the milestones the baby girl went through, and as she grew, and Mary went back to work, he found more work in his inbox than at Scotland Yard. As a consequence, he rarely went to the morgue anymore, and when he did he spent only as much time there as he needed to view the body, check the report and be on his way. Today, however, he left with more information than he was anticipating, as he'd overheard a conversation between the staff about a post-conference meal as someone had travelled down specially and they all hadn't seen her for a while, not since she moved up north. It took no brain power at all to figure out who they were talking about. By the tense they were talking in, he also gleaned that she would be in London for one more night. He wasn't sure what to do with this information however, as appearing out the blue where she was staying might be a bit not good, not to mention the last time he'd done that she'd turned out to be engaged. He filed the information away for later, and decided he'd come back to it after he'd solved the case, after all, he only needed a quick check in at a bakery to confirm his suspicions. In the cab home he had time to ponder the Molly situation and came to the conclusion that a quick text might be the most prudent form of communication.

 _Are you in town for the conference? - SH_

 _Yes, I leave early Monday morning - Molly_

 _Coffee? - SH_

 _White, no sugar – Molly_

 _20 minutes. – SH_

Molly rolled her eyes, of course he didn't need to ask where she was staying, although the fact that he hadn't just shown up in her room was quite surprising. She sighed to herself and decided to pass the time by picking out which talks she'd like to go to at the conference tomorrow. She was broken out of her concentration by a sharp knock on the hotel door, after 18 months, she was about to see a Sherlock she barely knew.

"Hello," He greeted warmly, the image a strange mirror of the past.

"Hello," She repeated softly as he stepped into the room,

"I went to the coffee shop you used to frequent," He said passing her a divine smelling coffee.

"Thank you, you didn't have to," She replied with a small smile, eyes fixated on the lid.

They drank in silence, not unlike how they used to in the lab, but with an awkward tinge around the edges. There was much that had been left unsaid between the two, neither knew quite where to start, so Molly began with familiar, safe ground: cases. The notion that she barely knew him was reinforced however, when he shrugged and began talking about baby Watson's development instead. At least she assumed it was baby Watson, as he never referred to the child as his own, and she was pretty sure he hadn't set up a child minding business in her absence. When he started talking about bowel movements, however, Molly moved the conversation swiftly forwards, asking after what everyone had been doing in the last year or so, John and Mary (not much), Lestrade (mediocre as usual) and Mrs Hudson (still not my Housekeeper) were all mostly the same as when she left. She would have said 'all systems normal' had Sherlock not been acting like a replacement from a parallel universe. Inevitably the conversation rolled around to her new life in Yorkshire, and she was transported to the bottom of a staircase several years ago, when it was her with the ring on her finger, and him who had left. Except this time, she didn't feel the need to justify or clarify her decisions.

"Life is good, the people are lovely and I have views of the moors from my kitchen window." She summated with a smile, giving him the same line she'd given her former colleagues.

"You're living with your new partner," He prompted, having expected more of a ramble from her,

"Graeme, he adores Toby. We're thinking about getting another cat." She answered shortly, giving away as little information as possible, lest her new beau be an arms dealer in his spare time, or perhaps got a speeding fine once – he'd broken previous relationships for less.

"Surgeons can often display sociopathic tenancies," He blurted, giving away that he had, in fact been watching her these past couple of years.

"Why are you here?" She asked sadly, after all he never did anything without a purpose, if he wanted her to do an autopsy she would be livid. He sighed heavily before answering with a question of his own, one he hadn't been able to solve, even with some minor stalking.

"Why did you leave?"

"Sherlock, it was time to move on, I couldn't stay somewhere where no consideration for my safety was given. You got me into the mess with Jim, and then hung me out to dry. Do you have any idea how scared I was that I was going to be kidnapped or tortured, or worse? Not one message from any of you to say that it was a hoax, or that you'd sorted it. You can leave me out of everything else, but when it came to Moriarty, I think I had a right to know."

"If you'll excuse me I need to have a word with my brother,"

"I will not excuse you, and if you are simply going to lay this at your brother's feet and exempt yourself from all blame, then I will not forgive you either."

"I was incapacitated for a while following the Moriarty broadcast, I could not tell you," Molly arched an eyebrow, Sherlock took this as his signal to continue, "I was in rehab, the whole thing was a hoax by my brother to prevent other events from occurring," She made no movement, nor did she give any signal that he was done with his explanation, and when he didn't continue, she lost what was left of her temper.

"Events from occurring? Oh you were leaving, you were going to leave, permanently, without saying goodbye? Would I have been invited to the funeral this time?" She'd always been able to read between the lines; it had caused many problems with previous boyfriends who weren't the most honest with her. When Sherlock paused before he answered, she was more than a little unimpressed.

"Molly-"

"I'll take that as a no then, let's just ignore that Molly exists, yet more proof that you lied to me to get what you want. Why was I so stupid? Deserve to be happy? Count?!"

"MOLLY!" He shouted, succeeding in getting her attention, he continued: "Yes you deserved better, you always deserve better when it comes to me, and I am sorry for that. Events that Christmas, and the months precluding were too tied up in other stories that are not mine to tell. Suffice to say there was a prolific blackmailer, and had he any sniff that you existed – I don't even want to think what he would have done. He was the one who put John in the _bonfire_ , Molly, it was imperative that you were kept as far away as possible."

"That doesn't explain what happened after Christmas, why you disappeared for months, and then show up in my morgue, acting like it's opposites day, married!" She said in a deadly calm tone, half-satisfied with the explanations so far.

"Ah. Well, I did wonder why you weren't visiting, I thought you wanted nothing more to do with me." He said a little sheepishly,

"I didn't know you were being exiled! Let alone overdosed or in rehab! You think so little of me that you didn't even _check_ to see if your brother, the one known for abhorring human contact, had lied to you? You think so little of me? Leave, Sherlock. Your wife will be expecting you,"

"I highly doubt that since we're divorced."

They were married for over a year, but she eventually filed for divorce citing irreconcilable differences, Sherlock acquiesced, statistically either him or John would end up divorcing, and he'd rather it wasn't John.

"Just leave," She said quietly, sitting on the edge of the bed and leaning forward to put her face in her hands, hair cascading to obscure her face.

"Not this time." He replied just as softly, kneeling down in front of her, taking her hands in his.


End file.
